Manila

Manila is a city that has been indelibly marked by phases of colonial and post-colonial urban development. As the capital city of the Philippines its significance economically, culturally, and politically to the evolution of the nation has been, and still is, unquestionable. Today as the chief port in a country that has one of Asia's fastest growing economies, and as the nucleus of Philippine commerce, banking, media, tourism, legal services, fashion and the arts, Manila's influence upon domestic affairs is unrivalled. Moreover as the site of a historic Chinatown, and as the hub of a bygone transpacific economic system borne in the late-1500s that connected Southeast Asia to the Americas, the city has long been its country's access point to regional and globalized mercantile activities. Yet as a city with a contemporary image grounded in it being largely unplanned, dense in terms of its built fabric, and blighted by slums, traffic jams, and polluted waterways, it is easy to neglect that Manila was once known as the 'Pearl of the Orient'.